As promised, I have dutifully recorded the years when Oscar did have ten contenders for Best Picture, and did use the preferential ballot. Before they went to ten, they had more, but I figured I’d stick with the ten because that is what we had this year. There may be a mistake or two, there almost always is.
My findings:
I did confirm what I already suspected, which is that acting, writing and directing are the heart and soul of the Best Picture race and subsequent win.
The winners usually have the most nominations, and they always have a writing and an acting presence. Only once did Best Pic not have an editing nod.
3 times in 8 years the Picture and Director did not match. The rest of the time they did.
Most of the time, the votes were split up among the Pic nominees. Only in the event of a sweep were they not – Gone with the Wind was the biggest of these.
Strangely enough, except for Gone with the Wind (9 wins), Mrs. Miniver (6) and How Green Was My Valley (5), the Best Picture winner averaged only 2 or 3 wins.
Twice, the film that didn’t have the most nominations won. Once the film that won tied with other films for the most (7).
My thinking as to why they might have reduced the ten nominees back to five in 1944 may have been that the Oscar wins were mostly too split up. You didn’t have as many strong Best Picture winners with a whole bunch of Oscar wins so much as you had a sprinkling of awards all over the place. They maybe like the sweeps and the strong presence of an Oscar Best Picture winner. Then again, I could be totally wrong. That is just a theory.
SIDENOTE **I started out looking at the techs but crapped out after 1936.
The charts (click on them to enlarge)
1936
1937
1938
1939
1940
1941
1942
1943